BIOS shows 8GB of RAM installed, but Windows says only 3.93GB is available.

[Vishera]

Yes, I have 64-bit Windows.

I first noticed this in Windows 7, and I thought I'd check Windows 10, and it says the same thing there as well. I'm not sure what's going on here. I would say one of my sticks is dead, but like I said, the BIOS still detects the full 8GB. Any ideas?

 

[wingman99]

That is available free memory to use that is not in use by the OS and applications. look where it says memory and you should see 8 GB.

 

[EarthDog]

Post a screenshot of what you are talking about so we can see what you are looking at.

What does cpuz say? Did you look anywhere else to confirm outside of a completely different os?

 

[notarat]

Yes, I have 64-bit Windows.

I first noticed this in Windows 7, and I thought I'd check Windows 10, and it says the same thing there as well. I'm not sure what's going on here. I would say one of my sticks is dead, but like I said, the BIOS still detects the full 8GB. Any ideas?

IIRC, I remember a video by one of the WinX designers who stated WinX will reserve more memory than actually needed in order to assign it to apps faster than if they allowed apps to request and then allocate it...

This may be the reason you're seeing the numbers you are.

 

[Vishera]

Post a screenshot of what you are talking about so we can see what you are looking at.

What does cpuz say? Did you look anywhere else to confirm outside of a completely different os?

I reseated my RAM three times and after the third time, it says the full 8GB is useable. I don't know what that's all about, but I don't have an example of what I was referring to anymore. I'm guessing there was just dust in the RAM slots?

To further elaborate, task manager said total system RAM was 4GB. System properties would acknowledge there was 8GB installed, but reported only 4GB were useable (3.93 technically). Windows 7 was also terribly slow, making me think it was swapping to the page file, although Windows 10 never displayed that issue.